Hosts and Presenters

Program Hosts

Lenneke Aalbers is an experienced consultant, coach and interim manager. Her focus is on development and change, on individual and organizational levels, as well as more broadly in the world. Lenneke is always fascinated to discover and connect individual talents, ambitions and actions with those of the context in which individuals live, learn and work. She aims to create awareness of the fact that a richness of opinions, perspectives and wisdom is available to answer wicked questions or solve tough problems.

For over twenty years her activities have included facilitating and leading organisational change processes, learning and development programs and complex collaboration and co-creation challenges. She works in many different sectors, networks and organisations, including international food companies, technical engineering and power companies, health organisations and social building organisations. She's involved in several international initiatives that support the development of leadership and innovative networks on social issues. Her home base is the 2000 year old Dutch city Nijmegen, where she lives with her son and daughter.

Chris Grant is a leader in the fields of group facilitation, mediation and catalysing change. Believing passionately in the collective wisdom held within groups and communities, Chris's work is to bring that wisdom to the surface, and to enable individuals and groups to translate it into effective action. Groups working with Chris are often surprised by the levels of energy, humour, productivity, reflection, insight, connections and authenticity that become available to them in a short space of time.

Having served his apprenticeship as a facilitator working in environments – such as Retail; Healthcare; Manufacturing and Broadcasting – where results really matter, Chris understands the importance of tangible outcomes. His skill is to create environments within which participants are able to be realistic about the constraints – practical, cultural or attitudinal – which might hinder their attempts to move forward, and where they are invited and enabled to unleash their best energy and insights to achieve their desired outcomes.

Chris is an Englishman of Jamaican / Hungarian parentage, whose style and approach have been proved to work on both sides of the Atlantic. His base is 14A Ltd, a small but perfectly proportioned consultancy in Greenwich, which he founded with his business partner Ann Lyon in 2002. He is a trustee of the Youth Sport Trust, and a Board member of the ALIA Institute for Authentic Leadership, based in Nova Scotia. He has a Masters Degree in Human Resource Development and 25 years' experience of leading groups. He considers himself fortunate to have encountered some formidable teachers throughout his life: two of the greatest of these are his daughters, Ella and Flora.

Chris Chapman comes from a background of community development and facilitating partnerships across public and community-based agencies. He is now active in bringing this experience into a wider range of workplaces, particularly in the context of collaboration around sustainability issues.

Being based in Ireland has given Chris great insight into leadership issues in times of decline and possible collapse. His current hope is that irish culture, including great story-telling and doing funerals very well, will help people to move on as times change. Chris has an MSc in 'Change Agent Skills and Strategies' and is widely involved in the support and development of other change agents. For many years, his favourite work has been hosting large group experiences with a particular focus on the innovation and learning that can come from unlikely partnerships. He has a reputation for integrating depth, compassion and humour, most often appropriately. He is consistently motivated by envisioning the possible futures for his two children.

Plenary Presenters

Michael Chender is the founding chair of the ALIA Institute, and the founder and chair of Metals Economics Group, a leading strategic consultancy in the worldwide mining business since 1980. He recently stepped down as CEO of Coemergence, an award-winning knowledge management software company. He has managed to maintain his sense of humour (he thinks) by also studying and teaching meditation in the Buddhist and Shambhala traditions since 1970. His animating passion is exploring how the wisdom and compassion pointed to in these traditions can be developed in the life of the larger society.

On the morning of Monday, 11 January Michael will present Bringing Authentic Leadership into Action.

Miha Pogačnik is a legendary violin virtuoso, Slovenian Cultural Ambassador, business maverick, and "maker of magic." Miha has worked with scores of leading companies, such as Ericsson, Shell, IBM, Hewlett and Packard, BBC World, Saatchi & Saatchi, Whirlpool, Skandia Insurance, ABN Amro Bank, Nike, Body Shop and others. Miha has addressed the World Business Academy, the World Economic Forum, Davos and agencies of the United Nations. Since 1998, he has directed a highly innovative interdisciplinary Annual Business and Art Conference at the extraordinary Castle Borl-Ankenstein in Slovenia. Miha is also featured in Peter Senge's Dance of Change and Otto Scharmer's commentary on Theory U.

Otto Scharmer refers to Miha's capacity to play the "macro-violin" as an analogy for the highest-level performance in organizations. He often quotes Miha, who discovered that "in Chartres you actually cannot play your small violin, but you have to play the macro-violin.... The macro-violin is the whole cathedral that surrounds you."

On Wednesday, 13 January Miha will present Implementing Our Learning: A Musical Journey.